Students store weapons at DPS

When students pack for school, they make sure to bring the essentials: underwear, toothbrush, deodorant and for some Truman students — a gun.

The Department of Public Safety offers Truman students a legal and free way to keep weapons on campus. Students who want to do so simply bring their guns to DPS, and are required to fill out a form with their personal information and information about their gun. DPS then stores the weapons in a safe located in their office.

When students wish to check their weapons out, they show DPS  their driver's license DPS runs a check to ensure the student has not committed any felony or gun-related crime. If the student is cleared, the safe is opened and they receive their gun. If denied, the weapon is typically released to a parent.

Only the 10 Truman officers know the safe's combination, including DPS Sergeant Leon Shears. He said in the eight years he has been with Truman, he has never seen a problem with the gun-storing procedure.

"We've stored everything from rifles to pistols and archery equipment," Shears said.

The only things DPS won't store are ammunition and illegally purchased weapons. Students may not keep ammunition in the residence halls, but can store it in their cars. Weapons used for defense, hunting and recreation have been stored at DPS in the past. Students can check them out at any time.

Shears said this program helps keep weapons under control on campus. When they banned weapons in the past, people brought them to campus anyway, creating a safety issue.

Junior Michael Dijak is a student who stores his guns at DPS. Dijak purchased his first gun his freshman year at Walmart because his roommate bet him he wouldn't.

Before purchasing the gun, Dijak did his research and found out about DPS's services. Dijak currently lives on campus and stores his Remington 770 and Mossburg shotgun at DPS. Dijak stores his guns at DPS because he lives on campus. He said he intends to purchase a handgun and apply for a conceal and carry permit once he can legally apply for one at 21, the legal age to apply for one in Nebraska, where Dijak is from.

To maintain proficiency with the weapons he owns already, Dijak practices maneuvers at Sugar Creek Conservation Area, located about 15 minutes southwest of campus. The facilities at Sugar Creek offer a variety of shooting ranges with distances of 25, 50 and 100 yards.

"For me it seems silly to own guns and not be proficient in using them," Dijak said.     

Dijak said students' rights to have weapons on campus should be expanded.

"They do a good job with what they have and I appreciate that they are open to storing guns on campus, but I still find it to be, at its core level, a violation of my personal rights in terms of me not being able to keep my weapons in my possession where I live," Dijak said. "I get the argument that this is state-owned property and ... a school, but this is where I live and anywhere else where I live there is a gun really close to where I'm sleeping."

Freshman Aimee Barczykowski said people having guns on campus infringes on her right to feel safe on campus. Barczykowski isn't against gun ownership in general, but she finds students storing weapons on campus frightening.

"Most people here aren't going to kill anybody with their guns, but you never know," Barczykowski said.

She said she understands the purpose of the program in respect to storing hunting weapons, but the limited restrictions on the types of weapons stored and the hours that you can pick them up make her uneasy.

"For hunting purposes it's good, but I don't see the purpose for handguns," Barczykowski said.

Sophomore Nick Hooper owns weapons used for purposes other than hunting.

The first gun he purchased was an AR-15, which is a civilian version of the standard issue rifle for the military, the MF 4. Hooper is also a cadet in the ROTC and has received basic rifle marksmanship training through the ROTC program with the MF 4.

When Hooper was a freshman and lived on campus, he stored his AR-15 at DPS, but now that he lives off campus, he keeps his weapons at his apartment.

"I feel more comfortable with having my gun in my own possession," Hooper said. "People are unsafe, guns are safe."

Hooper said he takes his personal weapons to Sugar Creek to shoot for recreation at least twice a week.

DPS's service is safe because they only check out weapons to the owners, Hooper said, as opposed to if they were sitting in a dorm room where anyone with access to the room had access to a gun. Even so, Hooper intends to apply for a conceal and carry permit when he turns 23 and also said he thinks that campus should allow these permits.